The PGA Tour has signed upscale food retailer Dean & DeLuca to replace Crowne Plaza as title sponsor of the venerable Colonial Invitational Tournament beginning this spring.
The event will now be called the Dean & DeLuca Invitational. It marks the first sports sponsorship for the company and comes at a time when PGA Tour officials said the outlet is considering U.S. expansion.
■ Dates: May 26-29
■ Location: Fort Worth, Texas
■ Prior name: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial (since 2007)
The deal is a six-year agreement. Financial terms were not available, but it’s an event-specific deal. In that regard, it’s similar to the deal the tour signed with grocery chain Safeway last fall to replace Frys.com as sponsor of the tour’s fall season-opening event in Napa, Calif. But Dean & DeLuca is a much different type of retailer, and so the push by the brand into the sports sponsorship space is sure to raise eyebrows.
The high-end food and wine retail store launched in 1977 and has 12 U.S. stores, but none in Texas. It also has stores internationally across Asia and the Middle East.
“Safeway came on board, but this is almost like a new category and for us, and it is exciting to build off Safeway,” said Rob Ohno, senior vice president of business development for the PGA Tour. “Dean & DeLuca has some really cool growth plans that especially in the U.S. you will be seeing.”
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Title sponsorship of the Colonial event is Dean & DeLuca’s first effort in sports.
Photo by: MARK MENSHEHA / STAFF
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Dean & DeLuca officials were unavailable for comment. The company did not use an agency to broker the deal.
Financially, the deal differs from event sponsorship agreements such as the one CareerBuilder signed last May. That deal, priced around $7 million per year, also made CareerBuilder an official marketing partner of the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour in addition to taking over title sponsorship of the January tour stop in La Quinta, Calif.
That overarching, tour-level platform is not part of Dean & DeLuca’s event title sponsorship.
The Colonial tournament has been held at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, for the past 70 years, making it the longest PGA Tour stop hosted at the same venue.
“They are going to come up with some great ideas on how to keep the event at a prestigious level,” Ohno said. “Some may not happen until 2017. This is their first sponsor. I have the feeling that they won’t fully activate this year.”
Separately, the PGA Tour signed a six-year renewal of its official marketing partnership with United Airlines that keeps the Chicago-based company the official airline of the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and Web.com Tour. United has been a PGA Tour sponsor since 2011. Financial terms were not disclosed.
United’s activation this year began at last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach tournament with a hospitality venue designed to mirror the airline’s United Club airport facilities.
Momentum represented United in the deal.
